David Bioinformatics Resources ★
DAVID was originally developed in 2003 by the Laboratory of Human Retrovirology and Immunoinformatics (LHRI) at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research. The primary goal was to solve a common bottleneck: functional annotation dispersion. Traditionally, a researcher had to manually visit 10 different databases (e.g., GO, KEGG, InterPro) to understand a gene list. DAVID aggregated these resources into a single platform.
The most significant milestone came with the release of DAVID v6.8 (the legacy version) and the subsequent upgrade to DAVID v2021 (or v2022/2023 updates) . The latest versions introduced modernized interfaces, updated backend databases, and significantly improved algorithmic accuracy, moving away from old statistical methods to more robust Fisher’s Exact tests and EASE scores. david bioinformatics resources
A researcher studying breast cancer metastasis identifies 300 genes upregulated in invasive cells. Using DAVID, they find that the top annotation cluster is "extracellular matrix reorganization" (collagens, MMPs, integrins). A secondary cluster reveals "epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition" (Snail, Twist, Vimentin). These results immediately guide the researcher toward validated hypotheses for drug targeting. DAVID was originally developed in 2003 by the
This is the engine of the platform. It aggregates annotation data from over 150 public bioinformatics databases, including: DAVID aggregated these resources into a single platform